Advanced technology computer and communication systems have transformed many important aspects of human and computer interactions. This is apparent when considering how technology has forever changed electronic communications such as message transmission and retrieval. In the not too distant past, voice-answering machines provided one particular way for a person to electronically capture a message and forward it to another. With technology advancements such as wireless and Internet systems however, electronic messaging systems have become much more sophisticated.
These systems may include e-mail, voice mail, pager and cell phone technologies, for example, wherein almost an infinite supply of information may be sent and retrieved in a concurrent manner. Due to the content and volume of available information, and the ever-increasing number of modalities for communicating such information, it has become increasingly difficult for messaging parties to coordinate when and/or how a transmitted message will actually receive a response.
Conventional e-mail systems provide one example of communications and message coordination difficulties between parties. In one possible scenario, an employee may be situated in a foreign country or remote region, wherein voice communications via telephone or other medium is not always possible. The employee may have indicated beforehand to fellow workers, supervisors and loved ones that e-mail provides the most reliable manner in which the employee will actually receive and be able to subsequently respond to a message. Although, conventional e-mail systems can indicate that a transmitted message has been received and opened by the employee, and can include a predetermined/pre-configured reply such as “On vacation for one week”, or “Out of the office this afternoon”—assuming the employee remembers to configure the e-mail system, there is currently no automatically generated indication provided to the message sender when and/or how long it will be before the employee may actually respond. Thus, if a home crisis situation were to occur or an important business message needed to get through, message senders can only guess when the employee will potentially receive the message and hope that the message is received and responded to in a timely manner.
As is common in everyday situations, messages are transmitted with varying degrees of urgency, importance, and priority. Often, key meetings need to be arranged at a moments notice in order to address important business or personal issues. Consequently, one or more messages are directed to one or more parties to indicate the urgency of the meeting. Also, messages are often communicated over multiple communications modalities in order to attempt to reach potential parties. For example, a business manager may send e-mails to key parties and follow the e-mail with phone calls, pages or faxes to the parties, wherein voice mails are typically left for non-answering parties. Unfortunately, the manager is often unsure whether non-responding parties have received the messages and is often unable to determine with any degree of confidence when all parties may be available to meet. Therefore, even though modern communications systems have enabled messages to be rapidly transmitted anywhere in the world over a plurality of mediums, there is a need for a system and methodology to provide improved coordination between parties and to mitigate uncertainty associated with when and/or how long it will be before a message receiver responds to a particular message.